They are minors, United States citizens, but still they cannot obtain the passports that would bring them back to the United States. These children cannot get passports for the sole and simple reason that their parents, undocumented immigrants, cannot leave the United States to go to their countries of origin and complete the necessary paperwork.

“It sounds unbelievable, but that's the way it is,” says Martha Salazar, an Ecuadorean mother who has been fighting for two months to bring her eight-year-old child back from her country of origin.

The child traveled there to visit his grandparents. Last summer, after school was over, Salazar sent her little son to Quito. At that time she did not realize that the child's United States passport was due to expire while he was spending his summer vacation in Ecuador. In the middle of August, when he tried to return home, Ecuadorean authorities refused to allow him to leave because the passport was out of date.

“Basically, that's when our Calvary began,” Salazar tells us with desperation in her voice. Salazar arrived in the United States 14 years ago and has been unable to legalize her immigration status. “My mother went with the boy to renew the passport, but to our surprise the consul who spoke with her told her they would not issue the papers because one of the parents of the minor child had to be present,” she said.

The grandmother's explanation to the consul turned out to be of no use; she told him that the parents were unable to come to Ecuador because they were both working, but that she bore a power of attorney which, according to North American regulations, enabled her to act on their behalf.

According to Salazar, her mother was treated in a “gross, inconsiderate and discourteous” manner. The consular employee told her, on the three occasions she presented herself there, that the consulate demanded “the presence of one of the child's parents, and otherwise she could forget it, she wouldn't get the document.”

There are no statistics on how many minors are caught in the same situation, but according to Carmen Salvarrieta, a member of the Plainfield Hispanic-American Center, “It seems to be more common than we might think, precisely in the case where the parents are undocumented immigrants and therefore cannot travel to their countries to fill out the applications.”

Salvarrieta also pointed out that the Salazar's son case was somewhat ironic since it was the Ecuadorean authorities who refused to allow the boy to leave the country because of a recently expired U.S. passport, a circumstance which violates no law; an U.S. citizen is not prevented from entering the United States if the passport has expired abroad.

María González, a resident of Fairview and the mother of two children, 12 and 13, both U.S. citizens, is experiencing a similar situation. She has been trying, fruitlessly, to bring her children back from Mexico, where she took them voluntarily 10 years ago, when she was going through a difficult economic situation.

Newly married and with greater economic stability, González wants to bring her children back. Although they are United States citizens, they remain in Mexico because the embassy has refused them passports since they cannot fulfill the conditions for applying for that document.

According to the web page of the United States Embassy in Mexico: “For the issuance of a passport to a minor under 14 years of age, both parents must be present. If one of them is unable to be present, a recent notarized declaration of consent from the absent parent must be delivered at the time of application.” It specifies that, with the proper form, a third person may be delegated to authorize the issuance of the passport.

A lawyer who specializes in immigration matters, Alfred Placeres, said that these cases are not “an immigration problem, because the minors are American citizens; we could catalog this as a U.S. State Department administrative problem which is dealt with by United States consulates abroad.”

The expert said that the parents can ask for intervention by a Representative or Senator. As a last recourse, they can file a federal suit, such as a demand for habeas corpus, which would force a federal judge to rule on the legality of a measure by which a North American citizen is denied the possibility of returning to his or her country. One could also submit a federal warrant, which is effective but costly, according to Placeres.

For Telma Garzón, of Plainfield, the experience of having been unable to get her six-year-old son back from the Dominican Republic for nearly a year has left her traumatized. “I filled out all the papers they asked me for, again and again, but they always said that I had to present myself there in person, and since I don't have my papers I couldn't do that. A charitable person, who is an American citizen, heard about my case and offered to travel there and bring back my son. She took all the papers, and after a week, finally she was able to bring back my boy,” recalls the anxious Garzón.

The three families we interviewed for this report agreed that the treatment their relatives were subjected to at the respective consulates was “deplorable,” and that the officials did not respect the fact that the minors were U.S. citizens and were entitled to a document that would permit them to re-enter the United States.

We were unable to obtain comment for this story from either of the United States Embassies in Mexico or Ecuador, nor from the Department of State in Washington.